Applicant: I am an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology at The Ohio State University. I currently have a teaching load equal to 30-35% effort, and a heavy service load; chair of graduate studies and 3 other dept. committees, recruitment member for our college-wide graduate program and secretary/treasurer of the Cardiovascular System Dynamics society. Upon award, my research time will more than double, and 90%+ off my total effort will be protected for research. Environment: The Ohio State University has provided me with adequate lab-space. I currently hold an AHA SDG, and a NHLBI RO1 to support my research. There is ample opportunity for scientific collaboration, and a wide array of core-facilities are at my disposal, including proteomics-, imaging-, and transgenic facilities. Research Plan: In plan to active participation in 2 weekly seminar series and 1 cardiovascular journal club, while official courses in responsible research practices will be taken. I will also be trained in small animal surgery, and do an internship in our departments' proteomics core facility. The research plan consists of three sections. In the first, I outline a summary of my currently funded RO1. As meanwhile we have made significant progress, in the second section I expanded that project with another aim: to elucidate the effects of myofilament responsiveness during various cardiac pathologies, using the methods and control data obtained with experiments covered in my RO1. In the third section, I proposed an additional line of research, that is related to the RO1 and its' expansion aims in methodological approaches, but has a distinct separate hypothesis. We postulate that heart rate variability (HRV; extensively and exclusively thought of as a marker for cardiac function), is actually a co-determinant of cardiac contractility. We have conducted preliminary experiments to show proof-of-principle of this novel concept, and will further investigate direct and indirect effects of HRV on cardiac function, including a possible novel therapeutic approach for cardiac failure.